Collapse Of WTC Buildings (Just the facts)

Great post, I agree. I will take the word of an experienced engineer as well.

 

Exactly. There was a rush to get rid of the evidence by selling the WTC steel as scrap to China and India instead of conducting full forensics investigation. The steel had hardly cooled off before it was shipped abroad. Why? </font>[/QUOTE]Whoa. I never said it was "rushed off to China and India". That isnt even remotely close to the point. My point is that now, five years later, you cant go back and revisit the structural steel to do any more forensic testing because the beams and salvagable material was scrapped and sold.

Were you in this big of a hurry to slap a conspiracy theory on the OK City bombing - because that, in the end, was a controlled demolition and whatever was salvagable was also sold. Who cares where it went? So not the point.

 

At the risk of sounding like I am joining the conspiracy hounds, I have some problems with a few facts on the Murrah building. Let me open a new thread and I will discuss it. There are a few loose ends on the OKC bombing that I have a problem with, but I will only deal with factual issues and try not to draw conclusions. There are some discrepencies there.

Let me answer two other issues from above:

First, LadyEagle; I opened this thread to discuss factual information about the twin towers and discuss evidence that we have seen and heard. You are simply adding commentary when you speculate on the debris removal. Since you think that could hold a key, then I will explain why it had to be removed so quickly.

First, the debris was not "just" debris. It was a HUGE pile of hazardous and very DANGEROUS waste lying right in the metropolitan area of one of the largest population centers anywhere in the world.

So, the bottom line is that all sorts of things are used in buildings, including depleted-uranium which is used as ballast in huge buildings and weights for large elevators. This is because it is 160% heavier than the same size piece of lead.

Depleted Uranium is harmless, as used; but can become a hazardous material when powdered, ground-up or exposed to the abnormal heat from the burning kerosene. This is the same with MANY of the building materials. There are all sorts of other toxins in building materials that are floating around in the building material including tons of insulting materials, concrete dust, lead and chromium based particulates, pesticides and preservatives embedded in the walls, toxic hydraulic oils and coolant exchange liquids.

Finally one other problem that I hate to mention, but cannot be ignored is the biohazard caused by all of the organic material from those that gave their lives. The loss of life was huge, making this a huge mixture of debris from the buildings and bio-hazourdous materials.

This is the same problem that happens at aircraft crash sites, only instead of a little light weight material from a plane, we have tons upon tons of "exploded" building material and debris. Why do I say exploded? The energy of the impact was probably close to that of a small nuclear device. This should answer your question as to why it would have been useless to try to reconstruct anything.

Now, do you have any facts that are evident that we can discuss?

Can you provide any evidence at all that explosives were carried into the building?

Can you explain to me exactly how these Arab "Engineers" would know the altitude the planes were flying close enough to place their devices at the weakened area?

Can you explain how the devices didn't get destroyed from the plane and heat?

So, which was it: Thermite? or explosives?

Finally, one final question, all of this molten iron was mentioned and it was speculated that it came from thermite. Almost all of the molten metal would have to come from the thermite itself which is made partially of Iron Oxide powder (rust). Most of the iron would be from that. How many loads of thermite would have to be carried up to the floor where it was predicted that the plane would hit to cause any significant amount of molten iron to be found in the tons upon tons of rubble?

Please provide some evidence, or at least credible theories based on evidence that we have seen.

 

We got a hunk of steel from it, cross-shaped, that became the centerpiece of a little park at a local high school, Albertus Magnus, here in my town.

 

We got a hunk of steel from it, cross-shaped, that became the centerpiece of a little park at a local high school, Albertus Magnus, here in my town. </font>[/QUOTE]I would imagine that is a very special, yet sad reminder of those who gave their lives in the attack upon our country.

 

Phillip, your questions should have been answered by the 911 Commission and the US government to the satisfaction of the American people, which were not answered satisfactorily to them, which is why there are these conspiracy theories in the first place. I'm no explosion expert, but I do know enough from watching implosions to know when something looks like an implosion in addition to the planes hitting the building.

Bottom line, you and others will believe what you want to believe, and those of us who think there's something fishy with what we've been told, will continue to believe there is something fishy until our government becomes transparent in these matters.

 

My questions on the WTC HAVE been answered by the US Government.

I agree with their findings.

Let me explain a misunderstanding about destroying buildings. This has been mistakenly identified as an "implosion", when in reality all the demolition crew is doing nothing more than knocking out the load bearing members INSIDE the building. The timing is such that the members are "cut" in order to cause the building to fall into itself---mistakenly described as an "implosion".

This is NOT truly an "implosion" it is simply a building that falls straight down instead of toppling over.

What you see on every video and every picture of the WTC is the way tragic_pizza described it very accurately. You have a stack of HEAVY concrete floors from the bottom to the top of the building. The planes themselves imparted a lot of energy in the building causing damage to the central structure. Luckily the buildings were built the way they were using the outside as a "tube" or "pipe" bearing the load of the stacked floors. Otherwise, they could have collapsed the second the planes hit.

The way it was, the plane caused major structural damage and leaked tons of fuel down the central section and through all sorts of openings in the floors. This burning fuel simply weakened the hangers (which were proven to be lacking in the area of proper heat-insulting material--but, satisfactory if an airliner doesn't run into your building.)

Kerosene burns EXTREMELY hot and the building turned into a blast furnace by sucking air from below and venting it out at the entrance and exit holes of the accident.

The weakest floor at the damaged point simply "let go", pancaking tons of concrete onto the second floor which was already weakened also. Everything simply pancaked on up the chain with the weight of the top causing the lower floors to continue to pancake.

There was very little assymetrical moment (some mentioned above, possibly due to central elevators and stairs jogging at certain points--some due simply to an uneven pancaking action.

The way the building was built, it had no choice but to collapse into itelf to ground zero. So, yes, if you want to call that an "implosion" you can, but it certainly wouldn't require anything beyond the plane crashes and the buildings construction.

The only thing we can be thankful for is that the huge towers were built the way they were because if they had central bearing, the planes could have knocked off the top half onto other buildings causing much more scattered damage. The way they were built there was a little time before the heat broke the floors free. During that time a few were rescued, but sadly many rescuers were killed.

All in all, the damage is exactly what one would expect of an airliner full of fuel flying straight into the structure.

The government has been transparent. What do you want them to do, make up stories for you? Would you like them to tell you that little green men from Pluto planted kryptonite in the stair-wells causing the plane's autopilots to drive them into the building?

I don't know what you are expecting of the government. It appears that every time a lead is found that it is made public. For reasons of national security, it would be completely "irresponsible" for the government to tell the public exactly who they are chasing and where in the investigation until they are ready. Otherwise, all you do is tip off the enemy.

Obviouly, the government has been doing a fantastic job of chasing Al Quida around because nothing else has occurred and I would have actually thought something else would have happened by now, due to the sheer size of this world and the number of potential terrorists.

Finally, back to facts, stick with these two questions.

Do you have any idea how much explosive it would take to collapse a building like a WTC tower from the middle?

How was that energetic material moved into place?

Finally, again, how would the terrorists know where to place it and what would keep the charges "intact" when the plane crashed and spilled its burning jetfuel?

As with most conspiracy theories, this one has more holes than the real explanation.

 

Why would it have to be from the middle and not the lower floors to cause it to collapse? Are you saying that in a controlled implosion of a tall building, it is always done from the middle floors?

Perhaps we are talking past each other, Phillip. I have nothing to prove, I am curious as to why these buildings look like controlled implosions.

 

The reason they would have to be blown in the middle is that all of the film shot at different angles show the collapse occuring at the approximate site of the plane crashes.

The lower portion of the building is fully intact as the upper floors pancake down on them. My guess is that ground zero absorbed the same amount of energy as a small tactical nuclear device.

No, I don't mean to imply that buildings are not collapsed from the bottom.

In reality, TV commentators make a big deal about the science behind demolition of buildings, when in reality it is actually fairly easy if you have studied the process.

The idea is the blow out load-bearing structures using timing between each structure so that the building collapses in on itself. The amount and placement comes from "rule of thumb" rules that were developed and improved upon since WWII.

My point is (on the amount of explosives) that the people would have to bring in a fairly large amount, which would be detectable. The Trade-Centers have been carefully monitored since the first attack from the basement parking. Notice that when it occurred they were also trying to bring down the building, but miserably failed. There was; however, more damage than it looked like since the bomb blew our floors up through about eight stories.

Partially because of the tubular construction however, a truck load of ANFO failed to bring the big building down.

Yes, we could be talking past each other. I was at church for the last few hours.

On the lighter side, have you ever seen the buildings that failed to fall when they were blown? One fell over onto another building and just leaned there. I don't have any point to make concerning the issue here, but just thought it was an interesting film.

It does make for a very dangerous situation because you have buildings with obvious damage to the major load-bearing structures and to re-enter and try to re-place charges is not only very dangerous, but also difficult to determine exactly where the pressures lie.

In all seriousness, look closely at any picture or film of the WTC towers. The puffs of smoke that people have claimed were explosives are actually concrete floors collapsing in on themselves. Explosives mounted in the building would have had a slightly faster appearance, and also the amount used would not have blown out so much debris.

The beginning of each collapse was at the exact point to be expected and that is where the weakness from the plane and fuel heat finally caused the hangers mounting the concrete floors to the outside load-bearing wall to let go.

There was a moment on each building that it appeared the top might topple, but the heavy weight of the pancaking concrete overrode the skewing movement and brought them straight down.

If you ever watch a building that is demolished, you will notice that usually dynamite is used and it is drilled and placed into the pillars or areas to cut. Sometimes, "cutting" cord is used. This includes either a long shaped charge of Composition 4 (C4) which can cut through a steel beam; or another type of cutting cord which uses two rows of explosives about a half-inch apart. The detonation moves down the cord from the blasting cap or primer/detonator. Since the detonation travels about 7000 meters per second (7 KM per second), they run down the cord almost instantaneously to the human eye. But, what happens is the explosives move at the same speed creating a tremendous shock-wave in the air. The shock-waves from the two explosives collide and cause a super-shock which knifes through the steel like butter. There is nothing secret about these methods, they are all used commercially. The cutting ribbon is often used under the ocean to cut off pipes near the ocean floor when moving a drilling-platform.

Then there is one final way, which is probably used most often by building engineers in the military to clear trees or buildings for construction and that is a flat sheet of C4 wrapped around the item to be cut.

But, even with all of these methods it would take a LOT of explosives to cover all of the load-bearing members of those huge buildings. Especially since the external wall was used like a pipe carrying most of the weight.

To carry this amount of explosives into the building would be next to impossible without detection.

Besides, nothing works better for the terrorists that a huge airliner fully fueled. I think; however, the pilot that flew into the Pentagon found out just how hard it is to hit a LOW target due to the ground effect, but he didn't have very long to think about his discovery.

 

Ive been told that had a upper level parking spot been available, it would have taken about 1500 lbs of explosives to take the tower down in 93. Do you agree with this?

 

I have no idea. That's why I asked the question.

 

I question all this investigating type of searching, for I'm convinced we might find out the truth. I typed in "Physics911 public site" in my search window and punched search. Again I was astounded at how many learned trained people had the audacity to question the word of the administration. We have today scholars that are genuine scholars and only interested in learning the truth. And of course the truth will blow our minds.

 

What?

 

The vast majority of them didn't give their lives; their lives were taken. Does the fact that so many of them were killed at the same time make each of them particularly special somehow? People have been killed for millennia upon millennia.

I'm more saddened by the deaths of my own mother and father.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls....

 

Not the "what" but the "why," Daisy.

 

Yes, Daisy I agree, but tragic_pizza also makes a great point.

I too feel closer to my mother's death than those at the trade-center, but the mass number killed (yes, lives taken, given, whatever) will always cause a nationwide grief. Its just a fact which probably leaves many people lonely with their own personal situations. Good point.

 

The World Trade Center was DESIGNED to withstand the impact of a fully loaded Boeing 707. The aircraft that hit the two towers were not fully loaded and were about the equivalent of a fully loaded 707. Of course you know that when a building is designed to withstand a certain load a safety factor of 5-10 is then applied to make it able to withstand a much greater load. A steel framed skyscraper has NEVER collapsed due to fire.

Your turn.

 

A steel framed skyscaper has NEVER collapsed due to fire? Is THAT what you said?

Did you even read my posts on the type of construction? Steel girders were not major structural load-bearing. They were only used as load-bearing below each floor. It is NOT a standard steel-framed building. It was a unique design that allowed it to be built tall.

If nothing else you need to watch more of the Discovery channel. Or maybe Modern Marvels on the history channel. You don't have to be an engineer to find out these things.

Would you please start providing wwhere you hear these things. Please provide the data showing that a building was designed to be hit by a fully loaded 707. Give me a break.

Ladyeagle is doing a much better job of rebutting, at least she provides where the information came from so that we can debate their data and qualifications.

I have given you many explainations in long posts and all I get is that "it is designed to withstand a fully loaded Boeing 707"?

Well, now that I'm past the shock of your post, I'll answer it this way.

If this is true, then I guess the engineers just messed up---big time!

 

Well, thanks.

Unfortunately, most people who try to rebutt me in debate, don't provide any links, just rhetoric and opinions. On these conspiracy theories, I like to read up on everything, because I don't trust my government any longer.

 

//On these conspiracy theories, I like to read up on everything, because I don't trust my government any longer.//

And so the terrorists win
The terrorists want to bring disrepute on the USgovernment.
The conspiracy theorists want to bring disrepute on
the USgovernment.

The terrorists want the people to be confused
and not follow thier leaders;
the conspiracy theorists want the people to be
as confused as they are.

Sorry folks, but I'm having problems telling
who are the terrorists and who are
the conspiracy theorists